God Is on Your Side

God Is on Your Side

1

Set the GPS

When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going

I remember the first time I had a suicidal thought. Your family and friends would be better off if you weren’t around. I’d been through a season that felt like crucifixion: publicly mocked, humiliated, and scorned. I lost my reputation, network, job, stability, and community. Many of those close to me needed distance.

Yet I felt called to cruciformity. Don’t retaliate, I sensed God saying. Don’t try to get even. I’m calling you to humbly endure. But months later, the adrenaline I’d been running on wore off. I hit rock bottom.

I couldn’t see a future.

What do you do when life’s direction doesn’t seem clear anymore? When your boss says you’re fired, your spouse hands you divorce papers, or the doctor delivers a debilitating diagnosis? It can be easy to think you’ve hit a dead end.

Sometimes you need to reset your GPS.

We’re going to Disneyland soon on vacation. Before we hit the road, I’ll set the GPS. Once our family’s bags are packed, gas tank’s full, and seatbelts are buckled, I’ll type in our destination. If we get lost, this will reorient us toward where we’re headed. When the kids ask for the thousandth time, “Are we there yet?” it will assure us we’re getting closer.

This is true of any journey: It’s good to start with the end in mind.

Jesus invites you to realign your GPS with his. In John 2, he shows us where his ministry is heading. It’s a famous story, where Jesus turns water to wine at a wedding. At face value, we might misunderstand this as simply a display of his power. (Cool party trick, Jesus!) Yet Jesus is doing something much more here.

Jesus is giving us a sign of where his ministry is headed, a road map of the destination he’s driving us toward. So buckle up: Jesus is taking us to a resurrection wedding. The road might get rough, but your journey’s end is where the rivers run with wine, the celebration never ends, and you encounter your destiny in union with God.

Resurrection Wedding

“On the third day,” John opens, “a wedding took place at Cana.” The third day of what? Is John telling us this wedding takes place on the third day of the week? Or the third day of the year? No, weddings were often a week long back then, not a single day. And this wedding doesn’t necessarily follow on the heels of anything earlier in the gospel.

“The third day” may seem like an insignificant detail, but every detail in John’s gospel is significant. As we’ll see, John opens stories with clues like this to show us how the story fits into the bigger picture of Jesus’s ministry. Which raises the question, Can you think of any other significant Jesus events that happen on the third day? That’s right.

Resurrection.

This is a resurrection scene. Jesus’s miracle here foreshadows what his rising from the dead will accomplish. On the second day, there was a funeral. On the third day, there was a wedding. On the second day, his body lay in a tomb. On the third day, he rose again. The second day looked like defeat. The third day saw vindication. On the second day, the enemy seemed to have won. On the third day, the devil learned you can’t keep a good man down.

Our destination is a resurrection wedding. We live in the second day, when the nations are tearing apart at the seams. But the third day’s coming, when every nation, tribe, and tongue will worship in reconciled glory. Right now, disease runs rampant. But at the resurrection, healing will go viral. Right now, you might feel alone and tempted by terrible thoughts. But, Christian, the day’s coming when you will enter fully into union with God.

On the second day, the wine ran out and all we had was bathwater to drink. On the third day, the rivers started pumping merlot and cabernet. Why? To celebrate the King rising out of that grave. Why did he rise again? To marry his bride.

Jesus’s destination is a resurrection wedding. This is helpful to remember when the road gets rough. When you’ve run out of gas and are stranded, exhausted and desperate, on the side of the road. Or when you’ve run out of wine . . .

When You’ve Run Out

“They have no more wine,” Mary tells Jesus. This was embarrassing. Parents were expected to host an extravagant feast. Imagine: Your child has been looking forward to this big day their entire life. The whole neighborhood is watching; the social expectations are high. You don’t want to let them down.

Have you ever run out? Tried so hard to meet expectations but felt like you have nothing left to give? Maybe you’re worried this will mark your reputation forever. God, I tried so hard to be what they wanted me to be—­what I thought you wanted me to be—­and I’ve got nothing left.

Maybe you’ve run out of patience with your kids, or stamina with your roommate, and said things you regret. Maybe you’ve lost passion for your job, or endurance in your loneliness, and gone places for comfort and connection you shouldn’t have. Maybe you’ve run out of hope and given in to despair.

Maybe you need someone to intercede for you, like Mary intercedes for her friend: Jesus, do something!

“Woman,” he replies, “my hour has not yet come.” Now, if I called my mom “Woman,” she’d slap me. Yet while that can sound rude in English, it’s a sign of respect in the original language—­like calling her “Madam.”

When Jesus refers to his “hour,” he’s talking about his crucifixion. This word is used throughout John’s gospel to refer to the hour when Jesus is lifted up on the cross. So Jesus is essentially saying, Mary, it’s not yet time for me to reveal my glory—­that is coming at the cross. But I’m going to give you a sneak preview right now.

A picture of his destination.

Jesus’s turning of water to wine is a sign of what his crucifixion will accomplish. When you’ve run out, Jesus meets you with his fullness. When you’ve got nothing left to give, he gives you himself. When you feel lost and abandoned, sideswiped and stranded on the side of the road, he pulls up alongside and invites you to journey with him. He’s got plenty of gas for the both of you, and he knows where he’s going.

Jesus’s presence doesn’t always make the pain of your circumstances go away, but his promise can put it in proper perspective. “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing,” the apostle Paul said, “with the glory that will be revealed in us.” You may currently be driving through the hostility and crossfire of a war zone, but you’re on your way to a wedding with a trustworthy guide at the wheel.

And this wedding will have plenty of wine.

Rivers of Wine

If you hadn’t noticed, Jesus makes a lot of wine. He has the servants fill “six stone water jars . . . each holding from twenty to thirty gallons . . . so they filled them to the brim.” Add it up: Jesus makes around 150 gallons—­that’s 750 bottles!—­of wine. He takes it to a party where the guests are already lit (they’ve been drinking for days!). Jesus isn’t the dude who shows up with a half-­eaten bag of Doritos and some leftover KFC to contribute to the potluck. No, he drops in with a truckload of the best vintage in town!

You might envision a sour-­faced Jesus throwing a wet blanket on your celebration. Jim, was that joke really appropriate? Sarah, are you sure you really need another glass? Colby and Claire, yeah, you on the dance floor, make some room for the Holy Spirit! That couldn’t be further from the truth.